4 ms·

The freedom to enslave others is not a freedom that one protects. I believe there was a little thing called the civil war where that point was made.

2trill2spill 8y ago
> The freedom to enslave others is not a freedom that one protects. I believe there was a little thing called the civil war where that point was made. Allowing people to make proprietary code from BSD licensed code is not enslavement. Also if someone improperly used GPL licensed software to make proprietary software it would be breach of contract or copyright infringement not enslavement.
- zeth___ 8y ago
  It is. You allow your code to be used in the subjugation of others.
  - 2trill2spill 8y ago
    Using code that I BSD license is not the subjugation of others.
    - zeth___ 8y ago
      If you used it to create proprietary code it is.
      - 2trill2spill 8y ago
        Using BSD licensed software to create proprietary code is not subjugation, in fact creating proprietary software from BSD code is perfectly within the license. If someone doesn't want their code used in proprietary work they would release it under a more restrictive license. Lastly you should probably look up the definition of subjugation before tossing it around liberally in conversation.
- belorn 8y ago
  Liberty involve many restrictive laws, with slavery being one of the biggest along with murder and assault. No one is suggesting that all laws must be only behavior worse than slavery or else the country does not believe in liberty.
  - 2trill2spill 8y ago
    Thing is though that the BSD and GPL license have absolutely nothing to do with slavery. So I have no idea why you and the other poster keep bringing up slavery in the context of open source licensing.
    - belorn 8y ago
      The reason is that some people use the word freedom and liberty as synonymous, while others put clear distinctions between them and argue that GPL do not fit their definition. Thus people who disagree have to take clear examples to explain why liberty laws restricts freedom in order to create liberty. If you prefer to use philosophy terms, conditions are negative rights. Those are similar to things like "I have the right to not get assulted, I have to right to not get enslaved, I have the right to not get robbed, I have the right to not get murdered, I have the right to not get recorded in the shower, and so on. Negative rights is freedoms to not have things happen to you by restricting what other people may do. Positive rights is things like I have the right to health care, I have the right to be on public ground, I have the right to social security, or I have the right to ask the government in the Freedom of information act and so on. Positive rights usually but not always demand something from others. Most constitutional laws tend to be negative rights. Combining negative and positive rights is how liberty is created. Its a balance between freedom to do things and restrictions to not do things to others, with the goal of maximizing free will and personal agency for society. GPL give freedom to do anything but with conditions that limit what you can do to other people. Just like with liberty the GPl tries to maximizing free will and personal agency and uses negative and positive rights to reach a balance. One could ask why the free software movement picked freedom when they intended to say liberty, and the reason is historical and localized. RMS did not want to associate the movement with the libertarian political platform. Maybe they thought that most people don't really distinguish between freedom and liberty, but now days liberty is generally favored over freedom.

2trill2spill 8y ago

> The freedom to enslave others is not a freedom that one protects. I believe there was a little thing called the civil war where that point was made. Allowing people to make proprietary code from BSD licensed code is not enslavement. Also if someone improperly used GPL licensed software to make proprietary software it would be breach of contract or copyright infringement not enslavement.

zeth___ 8y ago
It is. You allow your code to be used in the subjugation of others.
- 2trill2spill 8y ago
  Using code that I BSD license is not the subjugation of others.
  - zeth___ 8y ago
    If you used it to create proprietary code it is.
    - 2trill2spill 8y ago
      Using BSD licensed software to create proprietary code is not subjugation, in fact creating proprietary software from BSD code is perfectly within the license. If someone doesn't want their code used in proprietary work they would release it under a more restrictive license. Lastly you should probably look up the definition of subjugation before tossing it around liberally in conversation.
belorn 8y ago
Liberty involve many restrictive laws, with slavery being one of the biggest along with murder and assault. No one is suggesting that all laws must be only behavior worse than slavery or else the country does not believe in liberty.
- 2trill2spill 8y ago
  Thing is though that the BSD and GPL license have absolutely nothing to do with slavery. So I have no idea why you and the other poster keep bringing up slavery in the context of open source licensing.
  - belorn 8y ago
    The reason is that some people use the word freedom and liberty as synonymous, while others put clear distinctions between them and argue that GPL do not fit their definition. Thus people who disagree have to take clear examples to explain why liberty laws restricts freedom in order to create liberty. If you prefer to use philosophy terms, conditions are negative rights. Those are similar to things like "I have the right to not get assulted, I have to right to not get enslaved, I have the right to not get robbed, I have the right to not get murdered, I have the right to not get recorded in the shower, and so on. Negative rights is freedoms to not have things happen to you by restricting what other people may do. Positive rights is things like I have the right to health care, I have the right to be on public ground, I have the right to social security, or I have the right to ask the government in the Freedom of information act and so on. Positive rights usually but not always demand something from others. Most constitutional laws tend to be negative rights. Combining negative and positive rights is how liberty is created. Its a balance between freedom to do things and restrictions to not do things to others, with the goal of maximizing free will and personal agency for society. GPL give freedom to do anything but with conditions that limit what you can do to other people. Just like with liberty the GPl tries to maximizing free will and personal agency and uses negative and positive rights to reach a balance. One could ask why the free software movement picked freedom when they intended to say liberty, and the reason is historical and localized. RMS did not want to associate the movement with the libertarian political platform. Maybe they thought that most people don't really distinguish between freedom and liberty, but now days liberty is generally favored over freedom.